Klaus Leist

Dr Klaus Leist works at The Wiener Library, concentrating on deciphering and translating old documents. He edited As If It Were Life, A WWII Diary from the Theresienstadt Ghetto by Philipp Manes with Ben Barkow.

Philipp Manes spent two years in the Czech ghetto of Theresienstadt, where he played a minor role in the Jewish self-administration. He also organised over 500 cultural events, ranging from lectures, to play-readings, poetry competitions and concerts. These helped to maintain the morale and integrity of his fellows’ identity in a way that can now be recognised as offering resistance to the Nazis. In his last months he wrote an extraordinary 986 page account of his experiences, which breaks ...